Double Olympic medallist shooter Manu Bhaker and the new World Chess Champion D Gukesh were given a huge round of applause as they walked up to receive the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna from President Droupadi Murmu during the National Sports Awards ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday.

The 22-year-old Bhaker became independent India's first athlete to win two medals in a single edition of the Olympics. The shooter won the bronze medals in the 10m air pistol individual and 10m air pistol mixed team events at the Paris Olympics in August last year. On the other hand, 18-year-old Gukesh became the youngest world champion ever by beating China's Ding Liren last month. He is only the second India after the great Viswanathan Anand to achieve this feat.

Besides Bhaker and Gukesh, Men's hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh and Paralympic gold-winning high jumper Praveen Kumar were also given the highest honour. While Harmanpreet was a part of the team that won back to back bronze medals in the Olympics, Praveen won a gold last year at Paris in high jump. He was born with a short left leg.

About Arjuna award winners

A total of thirty-two athletes are being honoured with the Arjuna Award out of which 17 of them para-athletes. The para-athletes outnumbered the able-bodied ones in the list due to the magnificent Paris Paralympics performance in which they returned with 29 medals, including seven gold and nine silver.

The other athletes selected for the Arjuna award include Paris Olympics bronze medal-winning group of wrestler Aman Sehrawat, shooters Swapnil Kusale and Sarabjot Singh and the men's hockey team players Jarmanpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Sanjay and Abhishek.